How Hot is Ukraine Gonna Get?

[billbindc]

1 hour ago, The_Capt said:

Ok, how?  How is it a “major strategic victory”?  How is Russia’s position better than it was before this war if that is all they gained?  Is it decisive?  Does it create strategic options we cannot counter?

It sucks and we all would like it other wise.  But calling it a “major strategic victory” is hyperbole.  I will even buy operational.  Strategic would be half of Ukraine under Russian control and the other half held by a Vichy-esque puppet.  While NATO starts falling apart.

We got Finland and Sweden.  We got political Will for a decade.  We will get the rest of Ukraine.  Russia got a corridor of land which will secure Crimea better but it cost them far more than that was worth.

That corridor is an arbitrary metric.  Right next to “all of Crimea” and “every inch of pre-2014”.  They have sentimental value but in the hard calculations of geopolitics and military gains they do not mean as much as people think.  The West is not going to fall because this war got stuck where it is.  Ukraine is not going to slide back into Russian control.  Hell Russia doesn’t have the forces to exploit that corridor for a long while yet.  And by the time they do I am sure it will be mined and defended to the hilt.

In war there is what you must do. Want to do. And hope to do.  The trick is really understanding which is which.

The very definition of a "major strategic victory" seems to have morphed into only three quarters f*cking up an invasion it never should have made in the first place. Yeah...no.

[The_Capt]

31 minutes ago, Homo_Ferricus said:

 

I wouldn't say I'm pessimistic, I'd say I'm advocating for sober and serious preparation.

I will just pick this one.  “Serious preparation”.  Canada is talking about a Brigade in Latvia…under a Liberal government.  Russia’s single biggest loss, beyond all the hardware and credibility, is that it did exactly what it should not have done…it unified the West.  Further it pushed up to overcome our deep apathy.  We did not care back in 2014 when Putin went “I want this”.  Hell we argued about legality etc for years after a soft invasion that took the entire Crimea.  

Move to 2023 - the West no far how it puts its head up its own butt is not going to forget this.  Further, there is too much money to be made ensuring Russia stays in its box.  We spent billions ensuring Ukraine stayed independent.  We will spend billions more to ensure it stay out of the Russian sphere and that Russia stays in that box.  This is everything we should have done back in 2014.  And here is the thing, that strategic corridor won’t matter to that calculus.  

I say all this with confidence because the wheels are already in motion.  Money is being spent…a lot of money.  Russia just put NATO back in business for the next 20 years.  That is done.  Decided.  How is that for sober?

Look guys this isn’t late game rose coloured consolation prizing, I have been saying it since last summer.  Russia lost this war, badly…already.  The blow to their prestige and warfighting machine is pretty bad.  For example, Russian can produce about 200 tanks per year (ya, let’s pretend tanks still matter).  That is over 10 years of expensive production to replace what they lost in this war.  Their military is battered beyond recognition.  Any professional talent they had is pushing up sunflowers all over Ukraine.  What is left is hastily trained and mobilized recruits and that includes the officer Corp.  These are not things one can fix over night…and they are not cheap.

Hey if the UA can do a break out and cut that corridor - fantastic!  But it is not a critical requirement.  Russia was a scary monster and it just got mauled by a minor power supported by about as an ad hoc framework as I have ever seen.

Russia will not recover tomorrow or the next day.  They will remain a threat but one we will contain.  They want dance in South East Ukraine again?  Go for it.  It only gets worse for them over time, not better.  At some point the economics and drug deals with China will sour and they will run out of juice.  At that point we may have other problems if Russia unravels.  But this entire “Invincible Russian Monster Bear” is a myth.  It died at Kyiv.  It died at Kharkiv.  It died at Kherson.  It won’t be resurrected soon.

Now the next big question that really matters: “what are we going to do with the time we have taken?”

Edited November 3, 2023 by The_Capt

[Battlefront.com]

28 minutes ago, Homo_Ferricus said:

Of course it doesn't, and yes it will be painful for them. But not terminal and not in a way that precludes significant and destabilizing future Russian menacing of the west. There are plenty of painful economic changes we in the west endure yet somehow we often come out of it stronger. Let's not get sucked into "Russia sucks" beliefs about this. We hooted and scoffed about the ruble collapsing, crippling sanctions, unmaintained planes falling from the sky, freezing of finances and corporate pullouts. And here they are, adapting as hardy humans do.

Bad comparisons.  The West runs into all kinds of painful problems, but its systems are resilient and diversified, therefore recovery and ascent have been fairly consistent following downturns (I posit that Climate Change may undermine this in the future, but that's a different discussion).  The Russian economy, on the other hand, has never been resilient or diverse.  In fact, many major metrics of economy health have been in decline within Russian for more than 10 years.  The biggest example is the decline of the middle class and the concentration of economic wealth by state owned enterprises.

Russia's economy was weak and sick before this war due to long term systemic under investment, corruption, and negative political climate.  I do not think it is defensible to suggest it is likely to come out stronger after.

Steve

[The_Capt]

Just now, billbindc said:

The very definition of a "major strategic victory" seems to have morphed into only three quarters f*cking up an invasion it never should have made in the first place. Yeah...no.

Gawd, right?!  Let’s not give Russia a win it never earned.  We could stop this thing right now and it won’t change what has already happened.  This is 1905, not 1945.  We take the strategic competition victory and make sure we do not screw up the follow through.

[Vanir Ausf B]

4 hours ago, Harmon Rabb said:

Can't say I have ever heard of Colonel Lupanchuk before.

But with how important the use of Special Forces have been to the AFU in this war. I would say this man will have a lot of work to do.

Source: Zelenskyy explains what former Commander Khorenko of Special Operations Forces will do (Pravda.UA)

Major General Viktor Khorenko does not know the reasons for his dismissal from the post of Commander of the Special Operations Forces.

Valerii Zaluzhnyi, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, did not submit a request for his dismissal.

"I personally do not know the reason. I will tell you this, I learned about it from the media. I talked to the Commander-in-Chief (Valerii Zaluzhnyi), who also could not explain this to me.

The commander-in-chief is supposed to make the request for this, but he told me that he had not done so. I don't understand what has happened."

Khorenko noted that Zaluzhnyi called him today and asked if he was aware of the situation. The major general replied in the negative.

Khorenko says he does not know anything about his further fate in the military. He only said that "he will do everything he can for the victory of Ukraine".

When asked whether Khorenko tried to contact the President's Office to clarify the situation, the officer stated that he did not have such access.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/former-special-operations-forces-commander-182834018.html

[NamEndedAllen]

3 hours ago, The_Capt said:

We got Finland and Sweden.  We got political Will for a decade.  We will get the rest of Ukraine.  Russia got a corridor of land which will secure Crimea better but it cost them far more than that was worth.

That corridor is an arbitrary metric.  Right next to “all of Crimea” and “every inch of pre-2014”.  They have sentimental value but in the hard calculations of geopolitics and military gains they do not mean as much as people think.  The West is not going to fall because this war got stuck where it is.

As usual, The_Capt is spot on for most of this post. He has been right about the war so often. He argued early on that ending the conflict in a state of less than complete victory (for Ukraine) is likely the best reasonable outcome - certainly much to my own chagrin. A fully defeated Russia, a collapsing massive nuclear power would be no win for the world. He and others have outlined the many clear and undeniably critical dangers of that outcome.. And of course a defeated Ukraine would be a disaster that echoes into the future of for democracies and their alliances.

Ugly as it may be, a stalemate may be the least treacherous outcome - for the West. Except, except…where that quoted “we” gets mixed up with Ukraine. So often “we” look at this from our own inevitably non-Ukrainian perspective. We make conclusions, predictions and assertions accordingly. Perfectly reasonable. For us. But so oftenAs usual, UKRAINE’s opinion, its people, its politics, its ethos, are left aside. Either inadvertently from our own biases or less often, cynically; which is much the same. Sure, “we” can say Ukraine survived, and so therefore…Russia lost. And and and look at how we supported Ukraine! And that Russia’s economy and standing are so reduced. But what will Ukraine say? What emotions will be released when the government says, “we must accept a stalemate and try to negotiate…something with the most untrustworthy and monstrous nation on earth”? Again. Will the government fall? Honestly “we” don’t really know - that lies in a future yet to be determined. 

Personally, I’m delighted that this terrible expansionist autocratic, *criminal* force has been degraded so strongly, exposed so glaringly. In this regard as The_Capt outlined, “we” won. Russia “lost”. He pointed out that besides Sweden and Finland, “we got the rest of Ukraine”. I guess that’s  right. Ukraine might even like that it got “got” by the West. Although I suspect less so, if it isn’t quickly admitted into the EU and NATO. 

But “we” must not forget or minimize that the price for “Russia has already lost” has been paid most heavily by Ukraine. And that bill has not yet been fully paid. Many of its towns and cities are ruins. A great deal of its people are severely injured physically or emotionally, or both. The fickle Will of the West may well not shower reconstruction money on Ukraine. And Russia certainly won’t! Without the deeply rooted emotional strength that stems from real victory, I suspect how costly Ukraine’s bill will really be is hugely, galactically unknown. “Our” nations must not act like it’s over. A stalemate within a sovereign democratic nation’s borders will only be the next chapter in Russia’s War. Hope for the best. Plan for the worst.

[The_Capt]

2 minutes ago, NamEndedAllen said:

The fickle Will of the West may well not shower reconstruction money on Ukraine.

And this is how we snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory.  Ukraine will fight as long as it can and we should support them until that end.  Here we are discussing one possible end - I am not sure we are even at probable but we need to be ready for it.  Conversations well above my pay grade will land on how things finally resolve with respect to the war.  

After the war we need a modern day Marshall Plan.  One for the history books.  We turn Ukraine into South Korea in a month.  Even if EU and NATO somehow remain off the table there are plenty of other ways to secure that nation.  Not least of which would be stationing western troops on their soil a la the US 8th Army.  We need to follow through or we risk blowing the whole thing.  All the money spent to date will be lost if we leave Ukraine hanging during reconstruction.  If we double down on this and turn Ukraine into a regional economic powerhouse…a friendly democratic regional economic powerhouse, that is how we cement this as a major strategic victory.

[kimbosbread]

5 minutes ago, The_Capt said:

After the war we need a modern day Marshall Plan.  One for the history books.  We turn Ukraine into South Korea in a month.  Even if EU and NATO somehow remain off the table there are plenty of other ways to secure that nation.

Honestly, we need to let them into NAFTA, along with the baltic and the UK.

The UK in particular is determined to hodor itself completely, and it is our duty to rebuild them into something resembling a proper nation state. The Brexit cluster**** I think can be partially mitigated by allowing them entrance into the North American empire.

[Vet 0369]

On 11/2/2023 at 10:35 AM, hcrof said:

Do you know what it's costs and capabilities are? 

Seems pretty big and high tech for a drone killer. Maybe good for ultra high value targets but not general use!

And therein lays its greatest problem. In the USMC, we always taught the grunts to concentrate on the greatest threat, I.e. a weapons crew (I always had my pig teams hold fire until all the riflemen were committed so the enemy couldn’t engage the guns during the initial stages of the assault), and to engage the guy without a rifle or with binoculars or a radio (he was usually an Officer or weapons crew).

If it was my command, and I saw something such as that equipment, I’d do everything I could do to take out whatever it was protecting as a priority target, and that assessment could be done by a single drone or a swarm of sacrificial unarmed drones to get it to fire up.

 

[cesmonkey]

https://www.defense.gov/News/Releases/Release/Article/3578754/biden-administration-announces-new-security-assistance-for-ukraine/
 

Quote

Specific capabilities in this package include:

Additional munitions for National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile Systems (NASAMS);
Additional ammunition for High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS);
155mm and 105mm artillery rounds; 
Tube-Launched, Optically-Tracked, Wire-Guided (TOW) missiles;
Javelin and AT-4 anti-armor systems;
More than 3 million rounds of small arms ammunition and grenades; 
Demolitions munitions for obstacle clearing;
M18A1 Claymore anti-personnel munitions;
12 trucks to transport heavy equipment; 
Cold weather gear; and
Spare parts, maintenance, and other field equipment.

Under USAI, the DoD will provide Ukraine with:

Additional laser-guided munitions to counter Unmanned Aerial Systems.
 

 

[Battlefront.com]

2 hours ago, The_Capt said:

After the war we need a modern day Marshall Plan.  One for the history books.  We turn Ukraine into South Korea in a month.

I'm glad to hear South Korea brought up in this context again.  A couple of times this week I've read someone saying that there can be no reconstruction of Ukraine until Russia is completely down and out because otherwise who would want to invest in reconstructing something that Russia might turn around the day after and blow up?  The same could have been said about South Korea, which technically North Korea is still at war with.  And yet, South Korea was flooded with money and has been a notable success (well, in most ways success is measured).

Realistically, Russia will either agree to a cease fire that it intends on sticking to or it will just keep the war going.  I don't think there will be an inbetween where they say cease fire but still routinely send waves of missiles/drones deep into Ukraine.

Steve

[Battlefront.com]

Well, well, well..

 

[cesmonkey]

From ISW's update.

Ouch!

Quote

The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces launched four dozen Shahed-131/-136 drones from Kursk Oblast and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, Krasnodar Krai, and a Kh-59 cruise missile from occupied Kherson Oblast at targets in Ukraine.[1] The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Ukrainian air defenses shot down the Kh-59 cruise missile and 24 of the Shahed drones.[2]

 

[Battlefront.com]

13 hours ago, Kinophile said:

 

 

I just realized a couple of weeks ago another video was uploaded showing the destruction from the other side of the treeline.  It's the usual choppy editing with the massive BMP explosion (the one that had been following the tank):

 

Steve

[Twisk]

When talking about a "frozen conflict" why does that also need to be a low violence conflict?

WW1 and WW2 were "existential" and lasted for 4 and 6-4 years respectively with many millions dead. The conflict could freeze as is with a positional conflict across Eastern Ukraine. Just without the Ukrainian Army making major assaults. A Ukraine that did not engage in an offensive this summer could reasonable handle an avdiivka or Bahkmut. While still slamming Russian critical assets with long range precision fires and raids.

[sburke]

6 hours ago, The_Capt said:

Move to 2023 - the West no far how it puts its head up its own butt is not going to forget this.  Further, there is too much money to be made ensuring Russia stays in its box.  We spent billions ensuring Ukraine stayed independent.  We will spend billions more to ensure it stay out of the Russian sphere and that Russia stays in that box.  This is everything we should have done back in 2014.  And here is the thing, that strategic corridor won’t matter to that calculus.  

For folks freakin out about the expenditure from the west, it might be good to have perspective,

In Afghanistan the US alone spent some 2 TRILLION dollars.  The gov't sitting in Kabul right now is the umm err Taliban.  As of July we had spent about 76 billion in Ukraine.....  For the return on investment, it is hard to say the West hasn't got a financial windfall in kneecapping the Russian military.

[chrisl]

3 minutes ago, sburke said:

For folks freakin out about the expenditure from the west, it might be good to have perspective,

In Afghanistan the US alone spent some 2 TRILLION dollars.  The gov't sitting in Kabul right now is the umm err Taliban.  As of July we had spent about 76 billion in Ukraine.....  For the return on investment, it is hard to say the West hasn't got a financial windfall in kneecapping the Russian military.

And much of those $76B are dollars that were spent in previous years to build equipment that was sent and won't be directly replaced by new production of the same or similar equipment.  That's some value that's being carried on the books for that equipment, and most of it won't be replaced by new orders. Most of it will likely be replaced on a schedule similar to when it would have been replaced by new designs/technologies anyway.  The artillery shells and recent model rockets of various sources are the things most likely to be replaced by new spending.

[Battlefront.com]

1 hour ago, Twisk said:

When talking about a "frozen conflict" why does that also need to be a low violence conflict?

WW1 and WW2 were "existential" and lasted for 4 and 6-4 years respectively with many millions dead. The conflict could freeze as is with a positional conflict across Eastern Ukraine. Just without the Ukrainian Army making major assaults. A Ukraine that did not engage in an offensive this summer could reasonable handle an avdiivka or Bahkmut. While still slamming Russian critical assets with long range precision fires and raids.

Technically, a "frozen conflict" is one where fighting has largely ended, but there is no formal recognition by the warring factors that it is formally over.  This is the state of things between North and South Korea, for example.  It is also the state of things between Russia and Ukraine 2014-2022.  In the case of the Koreas there are times of armed exchanges, in the case of Ukraine before 2022 there was conflict pretty constantly at a very low level with notable exceptions.

WW1 and WW2 were not frozen in any way.  They were stalemated at times, but that's not the same thing.

Steve

[Twisk]

45 minutes ago, Battlefront.com said:

Technically, a "frozen conflict" is one where fighting has largely ended, but there is no formal recognition by the warring factors that it is formally over

Yes, I wasn't clear.

The thread has been using old notions of frozen conflicts to define this new one. Given that the defense is arguably in power, Ukraine seems to see this as an extenstial threat, AND they can deep strike against Russian assets why wouldn't this new frozen conflict result in a "medium war"? A small number of infantry on a largely static frontline with precision strikes into the enemy depths.

[The_MonkeyKing]

U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine, sources say
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/us-european-officials-broach-topic-peace-negotiations-ukraine-sources-rcna123628

Exhausted and disappointed with allies, Ukraine’s president and military chief warn of long attritional war
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/11/03/world/ukraine-president-warns-long-attritional-war/index.html

[The_Capt]

Rumblings on mainstream:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/world/exhausted-and-disappointed-with-allies-ukraine-s-president-and-military-chief-warn-of-long-attritional-war-1.6630107

It reflects what I have been worried about for sometime.  What if the character of warfare has simply shifted?  What if Denial has simply become too large for offensive action to overcome?  What if Corrosive warfare has run out of runway?

My fear is that there may be no way, no matter how many resources pushed, to break through.  If the RUAF could not achieve air superiority, how are we supposed to build up the Ukrainian Air Force past that level?  It takes years to create that kind of air power.  We have written pages of analysis on the drone problem.  More tanks are not going to solve it.  The truly concerning reality might simply be that no matter what or how much we send, Defensive primacy has emerged. The implications of that are enormous.  The technology and tactics to achieve deeper offensive objectives might simply not exist.

So what? Well first I am not totally convinced we are there yet - but the UA CHOD and president’s assessment is not promising.  They have essentially admitted the summer-fall ‘23 offensive has culminated.  Unless this is also part of an information ploy.  My sense is that Ukraine might just dig in and hold on while shaping negotiations.  Or maybe there is one more rabbit to pull out of the hat.

We may be at the “best of bad” stage.  But let’s not forget that Russia is likely in worse condition.  I suspect their recent tactical offensives are simply attempting to convince that they still got game.  Those very well could have been the tail end of what the RA has left in the tank.

Regardless, won’t change what we have been discussing the last couple of pages.  One thing this war has taught me is that most wars end this way.  The total victories of WW2 are an anomaly.  Far more often wars end with no one happy.  No complete resolution.  Open wounds and a whole bunch undecided.  We might have to re-learn how to live with that.

 

[Kraft]

1 hour ago, The_MonkeyKing said:

U.S., European officials broach topic of peace negotiations with Ukraine

And so Putin and China are affirmed, the west will get tired and throw the towel long before them, despite suffering not a single casualty and mostly dumping expiring cold war storage. 

How depressing, but I guess this solves some information asymetries, namely how much security guarantees of 1994 are worth, about 1.5-2 years of drip-fed and postponed support, we cant risk escalating after all, only god knows which city Putin will nuke if a dozen Taurus are send.

But I guess it will all be different when the peace is broken some years down the line, regardless of political climate, economic hardship or other wars..

Edited November 4, 2023 by Kraft

[The_Capt]

48 minutes ago, Kraft said:

And so Putin and China are affirmed, the west will get tired and throw the towel long before them, despite suffering not a single casualty and mostly dumping expiring cold war storage. 

How depressing, but I guess this solves some information asymetries, namely how much security guarantees of 1994 are worth, about 1.5-2 years of drip-fed and postponed support, we cant risk escalating after all, only god knows which city Putin will nuke if a dozen Taurus are send.

But I guess it will all be different when the peace is broken some years down the line, regardless of political climate, economic hardship or other wars..

Maybe a few trillion dollars in economic development will help:

https://www.politico.eu/article/von-der-leyen-in-ukraine-ahead-of-enlargement-decision/#:~:text=KYIV — European Commission President Ursula,said on X from Kyiv.

But you right…we suck.  It is all our fault.  That is the narrative to take and totally does not play into the hands of people who want to withdraw support.

Edited November 4, 2023 by The_Capt

[akd]

Another Terra unit vid on FPV drone ops, showing that is much more difficult work than all the short clips we see would suggest:

 

[LongLeftFlank]

7 hours ago, Battlefront.com said:

Technically, a "frozen conflict" is one where fighting has largely ended, but there is no formal recognition by the warring factors that it is formally over.  This is the state of things between North and South Korea, for example.  It is also the state of things between Russia and Ukraine 2014-2022.  In the case of the Koreas there are times of armed exchanges, in the case of Ukraine before 2022 there was conflict pretty constantly at a very low level with notable exceptions.

WW1 and WW2 were not frozen in any way.  They were stalemated at times, but that's not the same thing.

Steve

1. So if I follow the last few dozen pages correctly, this frozen front with no cease-fire would require both sides to fortify, man and sustain a 'high hazard' drone-and-arty-vulnerable zone of 25-30kms (?) on each side of  line (i.e. mine belts?), extending along some 850 (?) km of front

2. (that excludes Belarus, which btw has got to be in even worse economic condition than Russia or Ukraine, assuming the EU has truly closed its borders to 'Belarusian octopus')

3. Note my stress on 'sustain.' Over 1/3 of that extended front is in the southern zone from Donetsk city to the Dnipr mouth. The river and its adjoining bayou areas has proven vulnerable to raiding, so must be fully manned, including artillery support.

4.  With the Ukies now gaining proficiency with ATACMS and other long range precision weapons, including drones, the very finite supply lines sustaining this, ahem, Russian 'Long Left Flank'© become more vulnerable to systematic interdiction and destruction than ever. 

5. Supply lines by their nature cannot hunker down. They must move, continually and, in the case of the land corridor, predictably. And in a world where movement carries increasingly high hazard, that's an asymetry I would expect the UA to feast upon richly.

...I would expect at minimum the Perekop isthmus to be shut down. Fix a bridge, knocked down again next day, ad infinitum. Or more likely, the bridging equipment itself gets targeted.

6. In conclusion, we could see a slow motion winter campaign, where we watch Adviivka be very slowly (and expensively) eaten away Bakhmut-style, but where simply holding the Surovikin line saps a majority of Russia's logistics train.

Does this win the war? Nope, unless Russia finally decides it isn't worth it.

Does it create temporary 'bubbles' that UA land forces can work within? that can only be countered with extravagant RU efforts from bases far away (e.g. air and helos, plus exhausted 'quasi-VDV' kampfgruppen scurrying about and getting cluster bombed -- you know, that movement is hazardous thing).  We shall see, I suppose.

P.S.  Does the Russian defensive conundrum on the southern front start to resemble the Wehrmacht's situation in early 1944, with 'denuded fronts', PZ/SS fire brigades and all that?

Edited November 4, 2023 by LongLeftFlank